we are not numbers
emerging writers from Palestine tell their stories and advocate for their human rights
Senior year of medical school ‘turned out to feel like an amputation of our aspirations.’
The 2024 class of Al-Azhar Medical School; the photo was taken three years ago, when the students were halfway through their educational journey. Photo provided by Nada Almadhoun
From the beginning of my college years, I imagined the moment when I would graduate. When the years of study would come to fruition, caps would fly, futures would take flight, and dreams would take root and grow.
How would the joy mix with tears? What would be the sensation of answering the final question on the final exam, after six years of hard work? How does it feel, I wondered, to submit the last answer sheet in medical school? How does it feel when your dream comes to life?
August 2023, the first day of the final year: I was at last a sixth-year student at Al-Azhar Medical School. My colleagues and I were calling ourselves “the Seniors” of med school. I began with a rotation in Internal Medicine, specifically Rheumatology. My professor was Dr. Rafat Lubbad, the head of the Rheumatology Department. It was one of the best rotations I had and was the last with Dr. Rafat, who was a victim of violence; he was brutally killed during one of the many attacks on Gaza.
My teaching assistant was Dr. Hytham Almallahi, who was close to students, helpful, and flexible. Dr Hytham had been tirelessly volunteering at Al-Shifa Hospital from the beginning of the attacks. However, he was shot twice by the Israel Occupation Forces and now volunteers in a wheelchair, his name on waitlists for travel to be treated in hospitals abroad. He, once a beacon of support, now navigates his own path to recovery.
Graduation year turned out to feel like an amputation of our aspirations. It was supposed to be the first step towards achieving our dreams. Everyone in my class had ambitions and plans for after graduation. Some had been working hard to get accepted to Ivy League universities in the U.S. for post-graduate work. Others had chosen to stay in Gaza and serve our people here.
However, it is now the seventh month of being 24 hours off. Having had totally free time to do nothing but live in stress and fear, my education has laid dormant since October, through to the present. My colleagues and I are displaced many kilometers away from our homes. We are consumed with fear, mere ghosts of the doctors we are meant to be.
Our medical school lies in tatters. And Al-Shifa Hospital, where we experienced all of our memories, like a tapestry woven with hope and despair, was bombed. This place was our past and was supposed to be our future.
The writer (right) with Maryam, her medical school colleague and friend. Photo provided by Nada Almadhoun
One colleague, Marayam, was my confidante and closest school friend. With her I shared the most memories of those school years. Maryam was killed during the current attack. I have postponed writing about her for maybe the tenth time. Perhaps I am trying to recover from the shock I experienced when her soul left me and this world. I have felt so desperate and sad.
She was a strong, dedicated lady. She had lost her fiancé in December 2020, to COVID-19. And I lost Maryam in December 2023! December, once a season of celebration, became a thief, stealing both her fiancé and her own life.
Another colleague is Noora, a lovely and cute friend. In November 2023, she was the sole survivor when her family home was bombed over their heads. She clung to the wreckage and lost everything she’d owned before. She lost her parents, four sisters, and one brother. And she lost the house that had held them together as a happy family.
Just one day before the beginning of the attack on Gaza, this warm family had been celebrating Noora’s sister’s graduation, at which they took the last portrait of everyone together.
Three years ago, my colleagues and I celebrated completion of the basic levels comprising the first three years of medical school. We thought of ourselves as “half-doctors.” We celebrated, sung, and took pictures as one united class. We had mixed feelings of joy and pride that day. It was a day to remember with my colleagues. At the end of the day, we wrote, on tiny pieces of paper, messages to our future selves to receive three years on, when we would officially graduate as doctors. We considered this a symbol of our ambitions.
The notes are now lost amidst the debris. Our messages to ourselves, once filled with promise, are buried under the rubble of our dreams.
The questions that haunt me:
How will I pursue my dream?
When will I stop saying that I am a med student in my final year?
Is it a crime to want to be a doctor?
These questions never leave my mind. They have been floating in my head for the last seven months.
